EP250: How One Moment Becomes a Verdict
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(The notes below are only a brief bullet point summary of what is discussed in the podcast. Be sure to listen to get all of the goodness! If you would like a full transcription of the episode, please send an email to angie@angie-robinson.com.)
I have recently become obsessed with the show The Traitors. Some of you have probably been watching it for years. I understand. I’m new to the game. I started with season one of the UK version, then moved to the US version, caught up on all four seasons, and now I’m current with season five.
As I’ve been watching, I’ve seen in real time how fast people decide who someone is on very little information. From a psychology standpoint, it’s fascinating. And it’s very relevant to the workplace, and really, to all of our relationships.
This is the first of a two-part series. Today I’m talking about how one person’s perceptions form and how to check them. Next time, I’ll talk about how those perceptions spread through a group.
The Premise
If you’re unfamiliar with the show, here’s the setup. A group of players live together in a castle in the Scottish Highlands, competing for a shared cash prize. At the start, the host (Alan Cumming in the US version, and he is fabulous) secretly picks a few players to be traitors. Everyone else is a faithful. The traitors know each other. The faithful don’t know who anyone is.
During the day, the group works together on missions to add money to the prize pot. Some missions earn a shield that protects a player for the night. Every night there’s a round table, where everyone discusses who they suspect and votes. The player with the most votes is banished and reveals whether they were a faithful or a traitor. Then at night, the traitors meet in secret and “murder” a faithful, who simply doesn’t show up at breakfast the next morning.
If one traitor makes it to the end, the traitors take the whole prize. If the faithful banish every traitor, they split it.
Here’s what’s wild: the faithful have no real evidence. Everyone is acting like a faithful. So people are assessing tiny details like glances, tone, and who sat next to who, and making decisions based on gut feelings. Most of the game is people deciding what’s true based on very little information.
The Ladder of Perception
The concept I want to bring in is the ladder of inference, developed by Chris Argyris and brought forward by Peter Senge in The Fifth Discipline. In the Insights Discovery work I do, we talk about perception as one of the grounding concepts in self-awareness, and it’s been adapted as the ladder of perception.
If you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, you’ll hear parallels to the thought model: a circumstance, the thought we have about it, which creates our feelings, which drive our actions, which create our results. Same idea.
Here’s how the ladder works, starting from the bottom rung:
1. Event — what actually happened, as a camera would capture it.
2. Select data — what your individual brain notices and picks up on.
3. Add meaning — the value judgments you attach.
4. Make assumptions — your interpretations.
5. Draw conclusions — the logical next step from those assumptions.
6. Form beliefs — what you now hold to be true.
7. Take action — what you do based on those beliefs.
And that belief at the top shapes what you notice next time. It adds to your bank of beliefs, your bank of thoughts, your bank of evidence.
One Dropped Spoon
I remember one episode where a player dropped their spoon at breakfast. Another player went up the ladder very quickly.
What happened: the player dropped their spoon.
What was noticed: out of everything that person was doing (sitting down, grabbing food, having a conversation) the only thing noticed was the spoon dropping, along with what looked like nervousness.
Meaning: people drop things when they’re nervous, when they have something to hide.
Assumption: they’re hiding something.
Conclusion: that person is probably a traitor.
Belief: “I’m really good at reading people.”
Action: shared it with other faithfuls and wrote that name down at the round table.
All of that happened very, very quickly. And here’s the interesting part: oftentimes, not always, the people banished at the round table are actually faithful. The perception and the beliefs were wrong.
It starts with something neutral that everyone could agree on. The person dropped their spoon. No argument there. But the distance from that to a belief and an action is very short.
The Biases That Speed Up the Climb
Our brains have cognitive biases that make the climb even faster.
Confirmation bias. Once I’ve decided something, that’s all my brain is going to notice. Once I’ve decided that person is a traitor, everything they do, don’t do, or say becomes evidence that confirms my belief.
Fundamental attribution error. When that person drops their spoon, they’re guilty. When I drop my spoon, I’m just clumsy. Isn’t that interesting?
Negativity bias. Our brains give threat way more airtime than anything else. They’re built to keep us safe, not to keep us accurate.
When we go up the ladder that quickly and fall into those biases, that’s where we take action from. Sometimes we’re right. Often we’re not, and it can get us into trouble, keep us stuck, or take us down a path that isn’t helpful.
Where This Shows Up at Work
A team member is quiet in a meeting. The conclusion: they’re disengaged.
An email reply comes back later than you expected. The belief: they don’t respect my time.
Your leader gives you a short, abrupt answer. The story: they’re unhappy with me.
We’re not banishing people at work the way they do at the round table. But we do quietly stop trusting them. We stop giving them stretch assignments. We stop sharing information. Those are the votes we cast. And honestly, that’s how some low-trust, low psychological safety environments get built.
The Power of the Pause
Before you cast your vote, pause and challenge it. Stop on the ladder and bring yourself back down, all the way to the bottom rung.
What did I actually see or hear?
Is there other data I’m missing?
What else could be true? Come up with at least two other explanations.
They dropped their spoon. They could be a traitor. Or they slipped. Or someone bumped them.
A team member is quiet in a meeting. They could be disengaged. Or they’re thinking about a deadline. Or something is happening at home that you’re not aware of.
Then ask: how can I get curious? What questions can I ask from a place of genuine possibility, where I’m reasoning and thinking critically instead of assuming or defending?
If getting curious means having a hard conversation, decide ahead of time. What’s the story you’re most likely to jump into? How will you check yourself on it?
And when you do talk to the person, start on the bottom rung with them. Instead of “You seem checked out,” try naming what you noticed: “Hey, I noticed you were quiet today.” That gives them the chance to share information that might change how you climb the ladder.
We Are All Human
This is how our brains are built. They look for the quickest path to a belief, often in ways that protect us. We each carry an internal filing cabinet of experiences, thoughts, and evidence that shapes how we climb up and down this ladder.
But with awareness, we can pause. That’s the magic. When we pause, we can ask questions, get clarity, and check our own biases. And maybe, to use the language of the show, we don’t banish the wrong person at the round table.
Try This
Think of one conclusion you’ve formed about someone at work.
• What did you actually observe, hear, or see? What are the neutral facts?
• What assumption did you make, and what conclusion did you draw?
• Name two other things that might be true.
Does that shift your mindset? Does it make you more curious to find out what’s actually true? Maybe it changes your mind about that person. Maybe it builds trust, strengthens the relationship, or opens up a new person to delegate to.
What Do You Think?
Where do you notice yourself climbing the ladder of inference quickly?
Links
The Leadership Shift Interest Call
Discover Your Personality Style Quiz [download]
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